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Subject: How do you vote?
I'm curious, how does everyone here decide what to vote for particular songs? Do most songs for authors you know get 5-5-5, or 4s, 3s...what's the average for songs you vote on? I'm curious how tough people are on parodies...how tough is it to get a 5?
Here's how I vote:
Pacing (I'm more lenient on Pacing than the other two): Nail it: 5. Minor differences: 4. You really have to be off to get 3 or lower with me.
Funny/Overall (assuming the parody is supposed to be funny):
5: The song made me laugh so hard, milk comes out of my nose, even when I'm not drinking milk! Very few songs get 5s here from me, I try to save 5s for the top 5%.
4: A song that's funny and creative. I would say this is my average vote for the good parody writers. I think 4 is a very good score.
3: The song makes sense, and I get a chuckle, but that's about it.
2: The song doesn't make sense, and I bang my head against the table for wasting time reading it. Very few songs on here get 2s and 1s in my book.
1: Either the song isn't supposed to be funny in the first place (in which case, the "overall" score would be much higher), or the writer wrote something so bad, I have to make a statement by voting a 1.
Subject: Re: How do you vote?
Pacing:
5... VERY good. Spot on, with only a couple errors, if any. The flow of words is excellent.
4... Good. A few errors here and there. Overall, the author did a fine job and an effort to make the pacing correct is noticeable.
3... Flow of words is iffy, and there are more than a few pacing mistakes. You can tell somewhat of an effort has been made to make correct pacing, but there are some things that could be worked on.
2... Lots of things could be worked on, like the flow of words and the number of syllables. Not very good effort at all.
1... No effort can be seen, and the entire song does not flow at all.
Funniness:
5... VERY funny! Creative and hilarious. Definitely makes me laugh.
4... Funny. I giggle. They did a good job on making it humorous.
3... I may snort once or twice. An attempt at humor can be seen here. I usually don't laugh out loud for these.
2... Not funny. You can see that the author kind of at least tried to be funny, but it just didn't work.
1... It's so not funny that it's not even funny.
Overall:
5... Overall, it was a good song, and, I hope to see more work from this author. A minimal amout of typos, spelling errors, and such. It was properly lined/not in one huge paragraph/easy to read. Funny, and well paced.
4... Same as above, although not quite as good.
3... Altogether pretty mediocre.
2... Not much time and effort was put into this parody, and this can easily be seen.
1... Just awful. Terrible work. No effort. Bad pacing, spelling, and writing. Not funny at all.
Wow, that made me sound smart 8)
Subject: Re: How do you vote?
First, I concentrate on pacing...if that's right on, it gets a 4 or 5 from me. Then I move to funny. What makes me laugh may not make another person laugh...it's individual. But, if my parody makes me laugh, then it may fly. Of course really funny...5; kinda...4. Overall...no obvious mistakes in spelling, paragraphs, grammer, etc...then I averave it between pacing and funny. Hardly anyone gets lower than a 4 from me. If I don't like it, I don't vote and don't comment unless the person wants advise.
Subject: Re: How do you vote?
All very good ideas...
1. Pacing:
The key to all parodies.
2.Funny:
Humor is the most interesting factor.
prolific or not funny (2)
So-so...(3)
Most writers can write a funny tale.(4)
The best have a few surprises, and clever word play (5)
3.Choice of topic & song, originality ect.
No effort (2)
Poor effort(3)
Good effort(4)
Excellent work (5)
I rarely give out one's for anything.
Subject: Re: How do you vote?
Pacing, humor,& overall. If they are great and made me laugh, I give them 5's
If they are close in pacing and made me laugh, I give them 4's.
I rarely give out the other 3.
Subject: Re: How do you vote?
I judge pacing on how easy the song is to read...IMO, the backbone of the song
5...read good with no pausing, flew right through the song...
4...reads pretty good, but not perfect, some points in the song that I feel are either rushed or could've been done better
3 and 2...cannot sing the parody to the origional tune because the pacing is too far off
1...just horrible/not complete
funny is usually an easy 5 with me voting, unless the song really really unfunny and pointless
5...makes me kick myself for not thinking of it
4...got a few laughs
3...more profound of a song, but the joke is there
2...funny idea, but not too funny of a song
1...attempts to be funny, but misses by a lot
overall is really just an average of the top two...usually winds up a 5
5...pacing got 5, funny got either 4 or 5
4...needs better on pacing, funny got a 4 as well
3...funny and pacing <4
2...just not that great a song, needs a lot of work on pacing and funny
1...unreadable, incomplete song, a waste of time, if you must...
edited to change format
Subject: Re: How do you vote?
Quoting:
How do you vote?
End Quote
I usually click on the numbers, then hit the "Vote" button...
These factors affect what numbers I actually click on:
Pacing (pretty much what you guys have said already...)
5 - I've mellowed in my old age: I'll allow the occasional slip and still give a 5
4 - Workmanlike, but not perfect
3 - bad: doesn't scan well, rhyme correctly (or at all), maybe generally OK but with verse or verses missing
2/1 - normally I refrain from voting once it gets this bad - a partial parody which shouldn't really have been accepted at all
Humour
5 - Laughs, fun wordplay or clever storyline
4 - Smiles - it's quite easy to get a humourous 4 from me
3 - Unfunny
2/1 - Objectionable: something I actively dislike rather than simply unfunny.
Quite often I will give 4s to a really good but not very funny song, though.
Overall
How much point there was to the song/ how relevant it is... It's very unusual for me to hand out less than a 5 overall if the humour mark was a 5 (there's always a reason for a funny parody); for political or similar parodies, it's more of a measure of how well the point is made than anything else - certainly I don't vote lower if I disagree with the viewpoint... But a parody has to be really bad before it gets a 3 or lower in the overall section.
I've noticed myself giving out a lot more 5/5/5s over the past few months: partly I think I'm getting a bit more lenient, but mainly, IMO, the number of excellent parodies has increased (the submission rate has gone up a lot, too, so it could just be a normal distribution...)
Phil
Subject: Re: How do you vote?
I rarely have time to thnk about what I am doing as far as voting. I vote on the fly, while at the office. Here are smome things that cause downward ratings, tho--
Bad pace
Using the same lyrics as the original
Grade school humor that any nose-picking moron could have done
Inconsistent theme
Upward ratings for--
Clever puns or rhymes against the original
Original concepts--writing on a topic no one has ever done
Keeping the spirit of the original "singer" intact
Parodying a song no one has ever done before (but most people know of to some extant)
Universality (that is, topics/jokes that "everyone" that everyone can understand to some extant)
Lack of topicality, something that someone can still laugh at 10, even 5 years from now without having to understand the contemporary history of when it was written.